July 31, 1973
Page 26850
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, S. 1560, the Emergency Employment Act Amendments of 1973, would extend for 2 years a popular and successful Federal job program which has been enthusiastically received in my home State of Maine – the public employment program – PEP.
Under the bill $1.25 billion would be authorized in fiscal year 1974 for grants to State and local governments and Indian tribal organizations to fund public service jobs for veterans and others who cannot find work in areas of high unemployment. The value and effectiveness of this program can be demonstrated by considering two brief points.
First, the program has met its goal of providing a transition to permanent employment by paying for jobs with Federal funds until local budgets could pick up the costs. The Federal goal was to have the cost of 50 percent of the temporary public service jobs taken over by State and local governments on a permanent basis. In Maine, local and county governments have committed themselves to hiring 70 to 80 percent of present PEP workers with their own funds. In one community, Mechanic Falls, the program made such a successful contribution that it helped lower the tax rate below 1969 levels, and the town was still able to pick up the cost of employing all 12 of the workers who found jobs under the program. At the State level, PEP funds were used in the department of environmental protection to hire 16 persons, whose duties ranged from investigation to water quality analysis. Their work was so vital that the legislature agreed to fund all 16 positions this year. The Federal program can now help other individuals who are out of work .
Second, the program is still necessary to combat the chronic high unemployment in my State.
Despite the employment of more than 2,200 workers under the PEP program, 14 of Maine's 16 counties suffered unemployment rates above 6 percent last year, and unemployment was 10 percent or more in three of those counties. The continued need for the program is further demonstrated by the fact that Maine communities applied for twice as many positions last year as could be funded under the program.
To this praise of PEP, Mr. President, I would like to add a major concern of program officials in Maine: the specificity of the Labor Department's computation of job statistics. In a largely rural State like Maine, pockets of high unemployment often become obscured in the Labor Department's statistics. I was pleased that S. 1559, the job training bill passed last week by the Senate, directs the Secretary of Labor to improve the Department's statistical sampling, and I am hopeful that this directive will provide significantly better targeting of Federal funds to areas most in need of job programs.
Mr. President, the Emergency Employment Act is exactly the kind of Federal program which should be a top priority. I hope it will continue to receive strong congressional support.